Woman repeatedly raped inside Nordstrom

Prosecutors said one of the five people charged in connection with the
take-over robbery at a Nordstrom Rack department store in Westchester raped one of the female hostages.

Prosecutors offered no details. But a district attorney's office spokeswoman said the victim was sexually assaulted "multiple times."

Raymond Sherman Jr., 34, who authorities said was the most violent in the group, was charged with two counts
of forcible rape, one count of
oral copulation, one count of kidnapping for rape, one count of assault
with a
deadly weapon and 14 counts of second-degree robbery.

DOCUMENT: Read the criminal complaint 

Troy Marsay Hammock, 29, and Everett Oneal Allen, 24, face 14 counts
each of second-degree robbery and one count each of assault with a
deadly weapon, identified as a knife, according to the Los Angeles
County district attorney's office.

Rochelle Monique Sherman, 33; and Paula Roneshia Bradley, 29, were charged with one count each of accessory after the fact.

The complaint also alleges Sherman, who is awaiting extradition from Phoenix, where he was
arrested Saturday, used a handgun in the commission of the crimes.

Police have not detailed the roles of the suspects in the
robbery and hostage situation. But those in law enforcement familiar with
the investigation said there is strong evidence linking the crimes to those charged, including physical evidence and security video.

The incident began about 11 p.m. Thursday at the Promenade at Howard
Hughes Center, near the 405 Freeway. Sherman, Hammock and Allen
allegedly confronted the employees as they were leaving the store, which
had just closed.

As the incident was unfolding, one of the employees called her
husband and told him to call 911. The LAPD called a tactical alert and
closed off the area around the shopping center. When the police
department's SWAT officers arrived, they surrounded the store.

At one point, one of the suspected burglars exited, saw the police and ran back inside. A
second suspected burglar walked out with an unidentified woman, saw police and
also headed back inside. The officers entered the store at 3:30 a.m. and
freed the captives.

At least three of the employees were injured, including at least one
woman who was sexually assaulted. Another woman was stabbed in the neck
and sustained non-life-threatening injuries, and a third employee was
pistol-whipped, police said. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck praised the
employees for their bravery and composure.

Beck would not discuss whether the robbers hid in the store or gained
entrance after it closed. Nor would he say how long they remained in the
store before fleeing in a white SUV, or discuss how much cash was taken
in the robbery.

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Talk back: Can clinicians help pedophiles quell their desires?

--Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Police officers stand outside Nordstrom Rack in Westchester following take-over style robbery. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

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Slowdown in Germany Worries Euro Zone

BERLIN — Despite a drumbeat of optimistic forecasts from economists and upbeat statements from various European leaders, the actual news on the economy continues to be grim, with figures released Tuesday showing that Germany, the Continent’s flagship economy, contracted by about 0.5 percent in the final months of last year. Combined with a flurry of disappointing results recently in other major economies, the stumble raised questions about Europe’s ability to escape recession.

Portugal’s central bank cut its economic forecast for the year on Tuesday, saying its economy will contract more steeply than expected. France said it was likely to miss its target for narrowing the budget deficit, raising the prospects of deeper spending cuts and additional taxes. Last month, Britain said its austerity budgets would extend three extra years, to 2018, because of weaker than expected growth.

“This idea that Germany is a powerhouse dragging the rest of Europe along with it is a bit of a myth to be honest,” said Philip Whyte, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Reform in London. “You have a very weak periphery and a core which is not as strong as everyone seems to believe.”

Throughout the debt crisis, Germany has managed to float above the bad news, enjoying record employment, rock-bottom borrowing costs and export-led growth that kept chugging, in spite of the cloud hanging over the euro zone. But its European partners are also among its biggest customers, leaving it vulnerable to the Continent-wide slowdown exacerbated by the very austerity policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“The longer the euro crisis lasts, the more difficult the situation becomes for Germany,” said Stefan Kooths, an economist at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. “We have always said Germany is not a Teflon economy.”

The German government is scheduled to release its report on the economy on Wednesday, and it will forecast growth in 2013 of 0.5 percent, the newspaper Handelsblatt reported. In the euro zone as a whole, which is in recession with record unemployment, any growth is considered positive. But most forecasts are based on the assumption that financial markets will remain calm. If anything shakes investor confidence, like political turmoil in Italy or Greece, the weak growth rate means Germany would not have much cushion against recession.

France will probably miss its deficit reduction target for 2012, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the French government. Officials in Paris aimed for a deficit of 4.5 percent of gross domestic product, but data for November suggests the shortfall will be 4.8 percent, ING Bank estimated.

That means President François Hollande would have to find another $6.65 billion in revenue to meet the 2013 budget target, and France could face another credit rating downgrade. The data also shows the challenge of keeping France’s overall debt level from rising above its current level of more than 90 percent of G.D.P.

By contrast, Germany’s public finances are robust. Federal, state and local governments recorded a surplus for the year equal to 0.1 percent of G.D.P., the first government surplus since 2007. That creates leeway for Ms. Merkel to stimulate the economy with public spending if the downturn is worse than expected.

Despite the contraction in the fourth quarter, a compilation of annual economic data by the statistical office showed that the German economy is in fundamentally good shape. Exports rose 4.1 percent during the year, and 41.6 million people were employed — a record high and the sixth annual increase in a row.

And Jörg Krämer, chief economist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, said in a note to clients that he expected the German economy to expand again in the first half of the year.

Still, Mr. Whyte, of the Center for European Reform, said that while he was more optimistic than at this time last year, “we’re still not out of the woods.”

Nicholas Kulish reported from Berlin, and Jack Ewing from Frankfurt.

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Why the Atlantic removed the Scientology advertorial

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The Atlantic apologized on Tuesday for posting a sponsored advertorial from the Church of Scientology, celebrating its leader David Miscavige.

The sponsored post, which went live Monday at 9:25 a.m. PT, touted 2012 as “milestone year” for the secretive church, which has been steeped in controversy throughout the years.

It was taken down about 8:30 p.m. and replaced by a message saying the magazine had “temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads.”

“We screwed up,” Natalie Raabe, an Atlantic spokeswoman told TheWrap after the firestorm of criticism and mockery the advertisement generated on the web. “It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism – but it has – to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several mistakes.”

The Atlantic issued the following statement:

We screwed up. It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism – but it has – to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way. It’s safe to say that we are thinking a lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we figure all of this out. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge – sheepishly – that we got ahead of ourselves. We are sorry, and we’re working very hard to put things right.

The timing of the ad was no surprise. New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright’s book-length exposé on Scientology – based on his 2011 profile of former Scientologist Paul Haggis – is due out Thursday.

Sponsored content, otherwise known as native ads or advertorials, have become a popular source of revenue for online publications, including Forbes and Business Insider.

But, normally, advertisers do not want comment threads under their paid-for content, and while this has never been a problem for previous Atlantic clients, the heated feelings surrounding Scientology erupted in the comment section below the article.

The Atlantic’s marketing team was moderating the comments – about 20 in all before the post was pulled – as they were posted, Raabe said.

“In this case, where a mistake was made, where we are taking a hard look at these things, is there were comments allowed on this post,” an Atlantic official with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap. “For a subject like this where people very strong feelings, we realized there’s not a clear policy in place for things like commenting.”

The Church of Scientology told TheWrap no one was available to speak on the controversy, and its media relations team did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

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The Bachelor Celebrates 25 Seasons

TV Watch

The Bachelor

By Monica Rizzo

01/15/2013 at 07:50 PM EST

Sean Lowe and past stars and contestants of The Bachelor

Warner Bros.

Happy anniversary!

The Bachelor's current star, Sean Lowe, was joined by past franchise favorites on Jan. 11 to celebrate 25 seasons of the hit ABC reality dating show.

The Texas hunk clinked glasses at the famed Agoura Hills, Calif., Bachelor mansion with series creator Mike Fleiss and past Bachelorettes Ali Fedotowsky, Trista Sutter, Jillian Harris, DeAnna Pappas and the show's most recent star, Emily Maynard.

Also on hand were former Bachelor Jason Mesnick and his wife, Molly, who is expecting the couple's first child in March, as well as former contestants Courtney Robertson, Michael and Stephen Stagliano, Erica Rose and Casey Shteamer.

Jake Pavelka was also there, though he didn't appear in a group photo (above).

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Risk to all ages: 100 kids die of flu each year

NEW YORK (AP) — How bad is this flu season, exactly? Look to the children.

Twenty flu-related deaths have been reported in kids so far this winter, one of the worst tolls this early in the year since the government started keeping track in 2004.

But while such a tally is tragic, that does not mean this year will turn out to be unusually bad. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, and it's not yet clear the nation will reach that total.

The deaths this year have included a 6-year-old girl in Maine, a 15-year Michigan student who loved robotics, and 6-foot-4 Texas high school senior Max Schwolert, who grew sick in Wisconsin while visiting his grandparents for the holidays.

"He was kind of a gentle giant" whose death has had a huge impact on his hometown of Flower Mound, said Phil Schwolert, the Texas boy's uncle.

Health officials only started tracking pediatric flu deaths nine years ago, after media reports called attention to children's deaths. That was in 2003-04 when the primary flu germ was the same dangerous flu bug as the one dominating this year. It also was an earlier than normal flu season.

The government ultimately received reports of 153 flu-related deaths in children, from 40 states, and most of them had occurred by the beginning of January. But the reporting was scattershot. So in October 2004, the government started requiring all states to report flu-related deaths in kids.

Other things changed, most notably a broad expansion of who should get flu shots. During the terrible 2003-04 season, flu shots were only advised for children ages 6 months to 2 years.

That didn't help 4-year-old Amanda Kanowitz, who one day in late February 2004 came home from preschool with a cough and died less than three days later. Amanda was found dead in her bed that terrible Monday morning, by her mother.

"The worst day of our lives," said her father, Richard Kanowitz, a Manhattan attorney who went on to found a vaccine-promoting group called Families Fighting Flu.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gradually expanded its flu shot guidance, and by 2008 all kids 6 months and older were urged to get the vaccine. As a result, the vaccination rate for kids grew from under 10 percent back then to around 40 percent today.

Flu vaccine is also much more plentiful. Roughly 130 million doses have been distributed this season, compared to 83 million back then. Public education seems to be better, too, Kanowitz observed.

The last unusually bad flu season for children, was 2009-10 — the year of the new swine flu, which hit young people especially hard. As of early January 2010, 236 flu-related deaths of kids had been reported since the previous August.

It's been difficult to compare the current flu season to those of other winters because this one started about a month earlier than usual.

Look at it this way: The nation is currently about five weeks into flu season, as measured by the first time flu case reports cross above a certain threshold. Two years ago, the nation wasn't five weeks into its flu season until early February, and at that point there were 30 pediatric flu deaths — or 10 more than have been reported at about the same point this year. That suggests that when the dust settles, this season may not be as bad as the one only two years ago.

But for some families, it will be remembered as the worst ever.

In Maine, 6-year-old Avery Lane — a first-grader in Benton who had recently received student-of-the-week honors — died in December following a case of the flu, according to press reports. She was Maine's first pediatric flu death in about two years, a Maine health official said.

In Michigan, 15-year-old Joshua Polehna died two weeks ago after suffering flu-like symptoms. The Lake Fenton High School student was the state's fourth pediatric flu death this year, according to published reports.

And in Texas, the town of Flower Mound mourned Schwolert, a healthy, lanky 17-year-old who loved to golf and taught Sunday school at the church where his father was a youth pastor.

Late last month, he and his family drove 16 hours to spend the holidays with his grandparents in Amery, Wis., a small town near the Minnesota state line. Max felt fluish on Christmas Eve, seemed better the next morning but grew worse that night. The family decided to postpone the drive home and took him to a local hospital. He was transferred to a medical center in St. Paul, Minn., where he died on Dec. 29.

He'd been accepted to Oklahoma State University before the Christmas trip. And an acceptance letter from the University of Minnesota arrived in Texas while Max was sick in Minnesota, his uncle said.

Nearly 1,400 people attended a memorial service for Max two weeks ago in Texas.

"He exuded care and love for other people," Phil Schwolert said.

"The bottom line is take care of your kids, be close to your kids," he said.

On average, an estimated 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who are elderly and with certain chronic health conditions are generally at greatest risk from flu and its complications.

The current vaccine is about 60 percent effective, and is considered the best protection available. Max Schwolert had not been vaccinated, nor had the majority of the other pediatric deaths.

Even if kids are vaccinated, parents should be watchful for unusually severe symptoms, said Lyn Finelli of the CDC.

"If they have influenza-like illness and are lethargic, or not eating, or look punky — or if a parent's intuition is the kid doesn't look right and they're alarmed — they need to call the doctor and take them to the doctor," she advised.

___

CDC advice on kids: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/children.htm

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Man kills wife, leave her body in casino, police allege

About L.A. Now

L.A. Now is the Los Angeles Times’ breaking news section for Southern California. It is produced by more than 80 reporters and editors in The Times’ Metro section, reporting from the paper’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters as well as bureaus in Costa Mesa, Long Beach, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Riverside, Ventura and West Los Angeles.

Have a story tip for L.A. Now?

Can I call someone with news?

Yes. The city desk number is (213) 237-7847.

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World Briefing | The Americas: Guatemala: Gunmen Kill Mayor

Gunmen killed the mayor of the eastern city of Jutiapa on Monday, city officials said. Mayor Carlos Castillo Medrano was shot to death at a barbershop, the officials said. The killing occurred on the same day that President Otto Pérez Molina said there had been “a historic decline” in Guatemala’s violence during the first year of his administration. In his state of the nation address, the president said that homicides had decreased about 10 percent over the past year.

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Smartphone data consumption tops tablets for the first time ever

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Today's Photos: Molly Sims Shows Off Her 'Little Bunny'

Sims's six-month-old gets an adorable earful in Los Angeles. Plus: David Arquette, Naomi & Sasha, Reese Witherspoon and more

Credit: Michael Simon/StarTraks

Published: Monday Jan 14, 2013 | 05:00 PM EST

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Nordstrom hostages made to strip naked; 1 sexually assaulted, police say

Los Angeles police confirmed Sunday evening the arrests of three suspected gang members in the takeover robbery at the Nordstrom Rack in Westchester last week.

The Times first reported two arrests, one on Friday and the second Saturday in Phoenix. Sources familiar with the investigation described the man arrested in Phoenix as a principal suspect but would give no further details.

In a press release Sunday, the LAPD said that a total of three suspects had been arrested but did not give additional details.

Police would not release the suspects’ identities, nor would they detail how the suspects were taken into custody or their alleged roles in the robbery and hostage situation.

Sources said they had strong evidence linking the men to the crime, including physical evidence and security camera video. Prosecutors will decide this week whether to file charges.

The incident began about 11 p.m. Thursday at the Promenade at Howard Hughes Center, near the 405 Freeway. The LAPD called a tactical alert and closed off the area around the shopping center.
When the Police Department's SWAT officers arrived, they surrounded the store. At one point, one suspect exited, saw the police and ran back inside.

A second suspect walked out with an unidentified woman, saw police and also headed back inside. The officers entered the store at 3:30 a.m. and freed the hostages.

At least three of the hostages were injured, including one woman who was sexually assaulted. Another woman was stabbed in the neck and sustained non-life-threatening injuries, and a third employee was pistol-whipped, police said.

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